Electronic display technologies have evolved significantly since their inception decades ago. Cathode-ray-tubes have largely become obsolete as plasma displays, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and light emitting diode (LED)-based displays have become more commonplace. These new technologies have allowed for increasingly thinner and lighter displays, thereby allowing for the creation of devices that are increasingly portable that still provide a quality, high resolution display.
Regardless of the display technologies used, there is tension in the design of portable electronic devices between providing larger, higher resolution screens and making devices more portable. As an example, tablet computing devices such as the APPLE® IPAD® are in high demand largely because they offer significant computing power coupled with a relatively large, high-resolution screen in a device that is much more portable than a laptop or even a net-book. Although tablet-sized portable computing devices offer various conveniences and advantages, they are still too bulky to be reasonably carried in a pocket or holster. Thus, a person will generally need a carrying bag if he or she desires to carry a communications device that is larger than a standard smart phone in their everyday affairs. This may not pose a problem to women, who already commonly carry purses that are adequately sized to stash a tablet device. However, American society has not evolved (or devolved, depending on one's perspective) to the point where it is socially acceptable for a man to carry a man-purse—abbreviated as a “murse,” or, as Jerry Seinfeld calls it, a “European carry-all”—where he might easily stow a tablet-sized device to take with him wherever he goes. Although a man may carry a backpack or briefcase into some situations without taking a serious hit to his manliness, such accoutrements are limited in their suitability to various every-day scenarios. For example, a man may want to have a portable communications device along at dinner, at a movie, on a date, out on the town with friends, and so forth. Thus, while a woman may readily add a communications device with a larger screen than a smart phone to the list of items she can carry in her purse, to access wherever and whenever she likes, a man currently has few or no socially acceptable, un-awkward options for carrying a tablet into various common situations. This portability inequality is merely one example of the conflict between the screen size of a communication device and its portability.